Berkeley and Albany on the 1928 route in Alameda County.
After the construction of the Yolo Causeway over the marshes near Sacramento and more importantly the bridging of the Carquinez Strait, the Lincoln was re-routed along what is now I-80 via Davis, Fairfield and Vallejo to Berkeley and the ferry at the foot of University Ave. to the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco.
With one exception for now let’s stay on the Lincoln Highway route from the pier to University and San Pablo and then make our left on San Pablo. These are not the usual photos of Berkeley…those will come in some galleries later.
The picture to the left is nowhere close to the Lincoln Highway route in Berkeley – it’s over on College in Rockridge on the border between Berkeley and Oakland – but a fitting addition anyway because it is so Berkeley…
We start some pix of the Berkeley Pier – sadly, now closed. Read here and here about this. Some say it will never reopen.In the photo at the beginning – taken from the lot at the Lawrence Hall of Science above the UC campus – we can see what is left of the old pier jutting out into the San Francisco Bay. In one of the photos the banner asks about Berkeley Pier stories. Mine is the day my brother caught a shark (not a very big one). When we were kids we used to go fishing on the pier with our dad. A fine memory.
We then pass the Berkeley Marina (my brother has his offices nearby – he has not gotten very far away from where he landed that shark) and head to the Berkeley Amtrak station; the former station building (1913) by the tracks was built by the Southern Pacific and is now a restaurant. The two shots of the tracks were taken from Virginia St. looking in both directions (by the Crystal Amber Industrial Sand facility).
We head up to 4th St. and Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto restaurant. It began as a clam stand in the 1890s. The restaurant was opened in the 1930s. I have many memories of eating there as a family and picking up clams and other seafood from the fish market next to the restaurant. The clams from Spenger’s were a family favorite growing up. Just over from Spenger’s is the 4th St. shopping district. In case you were wondering, the Apple Store a block over was not there back in the Lincoln Highway era.
After driving up University we make a left on San Pablo and pass Everett and Jones BBQ. Trust me, it’s very good BBQ. There’s one at Jack London Square in Oakland, too. Next door is the former Rivoli Theater (1926) which is now a 99¢ Store.
The Lincoln continues on San Pablo Ave. all the way to the Carquinez Strait. This set, however, will stop in Albany at the edge of Alameda County.
There are not that many of the old motor courts left on San Pablo. The Golden Bear at San Pablo and Cedar is a classic. Much of the old signage on San Pablo is gone, too. The Spenger’s signage, together with some additional classic signage from Gilman in Berkeley to Albany Bowl and the Hotsy Totsy Club in Albany, survive.
The one detour off the Lincoln we will take will be to the Campanile (1914) on the University of California campus (formally it is called Sather Tower). Why the detour? This is our second Lincoln sighting driving west-to-east on the Lincoln Highway. The Lincoln bust there was a gift from a member of the class of 1896; it is a casting from a mold made from the Lincoln bust by Borglum at the US Capitol in Washington. That’s the Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941) of Mount Rushmore fame and also the creator of the “Seated Lincoln” bronze sculpture along the Lincoln Highway by the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, NJ, which is pictured in another post on this site.
